Relocatable radiation portal monitors (RPMs) based on plastic scintillators - 54112

This poster presents Radiation Portal Monitors (RPMs) that are usually used to detect radioactive gamma and neutron sources transported in vehicles or carried by pedestrians. The new challenges for the 'Relocatable detection system' developed during C-BORD are related to the capability to work in the field, in a real customs environment, being either a sea port or a land border. The C-BORD project requires successively implementing the equipment at three distinct locations: Rotterdam, a large harbour processing more than 1000 containers per day in Netherlands, Gdansk, a smaller harbor similar to other inter modal container terminal in Poland, and Roeszke, a road land border control checkpoint in Hungary. The first breakthrough is to design a system easy relocatable system from one place to another. The main purpose of the 'Relocatable detection system' is to develop a passive vehicular radiation portal monitor with the ability to detect special nuclear material materials and other radioactive materials. The ongoing 'Relocatable detection system' presented in this document is based on EJ200 plastic scintillators. The feasibility for these sensors to replace the former widely used helium-3 based systems for neutron detection was demonstrated during the previous European FP7 project called SCINTILLA. There is a strong interest in finding a replacement for He-3, which is the major consumable for today's RPM devices, because it has become close to unavailable or too expensive in the European Union. At the end of the SCINTILLA project, a key development made by CEA LIST was a detection system built of EJ-200 sensors, where four pillars were necessary to be sensitive enough for neutron detection. To make the system more easily relocatable to meet C-BORD requirements, it appeared useful to improve the sensitivity in order to reduce the number of pillars. During the first 15 months of C-BORD, a new design with two pillars for a more convenient relocatable RPM system was delivered. The new system using EJ-200 plastic scintillator sensors is submitted to investigations, on pulse shape tracking combine with detection technic to improve the neutron detection signal to noise ratio. The radiologic tests were done at CEA Saclay to define the best detector configuration. Dynamic tests were performed on Illicit Trafficking Radiological Assessment Program +10 (ITRAP+10) platform at JRC Ispra with European Joint Research Center team support. The validation process is mainly based on the capability according to the ANSI 42.35 standard 2016 version, which describes requirements for nuclear portals applied to vehicles. The technical results of this work revealed an unexpected positive impact on the cost effectiveness for RPMs and allow to provide relocatable detection system. (authors)